Claude Monet (1840–1926) Monet was the driving force behind Impressionism, a movement that captured fleeting light, atmosphere, and sensory experience. Rejecting studio conventions, he painted en plein air, using rapid brushstrokes and pure color to depict how sunlight transforms a scene at different hours. His series—Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, Water Lilies—explored subtle shifts in perception over time. Though mocked early on (“Impression, Sunrise” gave critics the term they intended as insult), Monet’s approach revolutionized painting by prioritizing sensation over detail. His garden at Giverny became his final muse; the Water Lilies murals, installed at the Musée de l’Orangerie, envelop viewers in meditative abstraction decades before Abstract Expressionism. Nearly blind in old age, he still painted with emotional clarity. Monet shifted art’s purpose: not to document, but to evoke. He taught us to see the world anew—not as objects, but as shimmering interactions of light and color. His legacy endures in every artist who values immediacy, mood, and the beauty of the moment.
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